


My birthday.

by TheRedHairFangirl



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Concerts, F/M, Fluff, Meet and Greets
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-14
Updated: 2018-05-14
Packaged: 2019-05-06 21:37:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14656734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheRedHairFangirl/pseuds/TheRedHairFangirl
Summary: The story of a M&G and a concert with Niall Horan during the Flicker World Tour.





	My birthday.

This is probably going to be the most cliché thing you’re going to read today, but clearly, I’m not sorry about it. Because I’m going to write about my feelings, about my experience, about one of the happiest, if not the happiest of them all, moment of my short life.

My name’s Zélie. I’m French. I’m Nineteen. And I’ve been a fan of a band named “One Direction”, for eight years now. That’s all you’ll need to know for this story, at least for now. 

This is the story of the day I’ve met the sunshine of my life – the other members all are important to me but here, it’s my sunshine, and if I share it here today, it is not to make other people jealous or to be hated or praised or whatever. It’s just so I remember the day perfectly, even if the memories will be as vivid as they are right now, I want them to be as vivid in twenty years from now, even if I’ll need a little help for them to be remembered. This is what this post is for.

It all started in October of last year, when Niall announced his European tour. Actually, it started a week before he announced it, because rumour has it that he was going to come to France for this concert on April 18th. Any date for anyone. Not for me. It had never ever had been just any date, for my whole life. It’s my birthday. Yeah, how convenient. I know it’s sort of a game for the boys during concerts because of people having signs saying it’s their birthdays and all and sometimes it’s not the case, but it wasn’t my fault here. It was Niall’s.  
My best friend, Madenn, screamed at me it was fate, and Niall was meant to be with me because it was “soulmate shits right there”. You know, casual best friends’ conversations. But since it was just rumours, I tried not to get carried away too much. It lasted, like, three days. 

Because then, Niall announced his tour, and he was, indeed, coming to Paris on April 18th of the following year. I remember being in class when I received the tweet notification, and I needed a moment to focus so I wouldn’t cry in the middle of my English class. I sent a text to my dad, and I quote (well, translate, I’m French so my dad is, remember?):  
_“Dad, I know you have no idea who he is, but just to let you know that Niall Horan is coming to Paris to play a concert on my birthday, and I just wanted to let you know that if I can’t go, I don’t want to hear about my birthday ever again.”_  
Now, it seems so childish to me, but I think I’d still send it that way anyway, even more if it is to have the answer I had from my dad minutes after;  
_“Of course I know who he is, what do you think of me? His name is Niall James Horan, he was born in Mullingar on September 13th of 1993 and he is blond.”_  
I told him to thank Wikipedia, adding he was no longer blond, and I spent the rest of the day on a little cloud.

Tickets were to be sold on the next Friday, and lucky me I’d saved money for a day like this or for any emergency I was hoping would not happen, by working all summer long and on weekend during school year. And since Niall was coming on my birthday, I really wanted to give myself the biggest gift I could, and have a Meet & Greet.  
I’ve never had the chance to properly meet any of the guys, but we had the chance with Madenn to see them live in Paris on June, 20th of 2014. It was one of the most amazing experience of my life, even though the pit was horrible to be in. I’d do it all over again.  
The only thing I was scared of with the Flicker World Tour tickets, was that they were going to be sold out in record time, because thank you internet to allow people to buy all the tickets to then sell them four times the price later on. _*sigh*_ The small chance we could have was that the m &g wouldn’t be the first one to be sold out, since it costed quite the price and not everyone was lucky enough to put money on this. Also, the problem was, I was supposed to be in class when the tickets were to be sell. Madenn wasn’t, so she said she was going to take both our tickets, and I left my card for her to pay for mine.

We had them, and then it was all about waiting. One hundred and eighty days of waiting. Nights of stressing about it, nights of crying about it because of being afraid of the after, nights of crying about it because of happiness, nights of “omg I can’t believe this is coming up so fast”.  
And then, the day arrived.

Sure, we had m&g packages so we were to be well placed in the pit comparing to people who just had pit tickets. But we went to the venue early anyway, and were in the first twenty in the m&g file. It was a nice warn, sunny day, and I had chosen to wear a dress of my favourite colour as it was my tradition to wear yellow on my birthday. Madenn had bought us flower crowns, and I felt really, really pretty. Which was a great thing, since I was going to have a picture with a man, a picture I’ll cherish for the rest of my life.  
Madenn being an extrovert belonging amongst people, she quickly started to talk with girls who were around us, and soon I heard them singing “happy birthday” to me so I thank them, even though I was very embarrassed. I knew Madenn was going to do that, so it was fine. Kind of.  
The day flew by, and I congratulated past me to have brought sunscreen because sun was hitting hard that day, and where we stayed all day long was nowhere near a tree or something to give us some shadow.  
At three pm, our file started to get in, and that was the first time I cried. Because yeah, I forgot to write down, starting this moment, I’ve spent the rest of the day crying. The waiting was nearly done, and the hard part was almost over, but the following half hour remained the longest of my life.  
Our cell phones were taken away, and the first fans entered, one by one, and soon it was our time. We decided to have individual pictures with Niall, Madenn and I, instead of us two in the same picture. I was supposed to go first, but I was shaking so bad Madenn had to take my hands in hers, and she agreed when I begged her to go first because I needed to calm down.  
The girl behind me put her hands on my arm and asked if I was okay once Madenn was in and I didn’t have my support anymore. I thank the girl and nodded, trying to have a breathing pattern, and suddenly I needed more time and I couldn’t have more time, since I was told it was my turn. I remember wondering how fast Madenn had been because it was my turn already but she had only gotten in two seconds before?

I held my breath going in, new tears falling down on my cheeks. I hated myself for being such a mess already. There was a sort of corridor, and then a curtain some security guy lifted, and I got in, saw him, and literally melted. He was the cutest. I stopped there, unable to move closer, to say a word, to do anything but cry harder. Since I couldn’t get myself to move he came to me, all smiley. He was wearing a shirt from his merch and I was glad he was because I really wished he would. It was obviously too hot for him to wear his vanilla hoodie (my personal fav), but he was wearing his white _on the loose_ one. And he was looking amazing, as usual.

“Hey, love, are you okay?”

No. I clearly wasn’t. Been the case for months, for years. And I had kept going mostly all thanks to this guy’s voice, and he was standing in front of me right now, and I was a crying mess, and god, I hated that. Not that he was in front of me, but the “me being messy” part. I still nodded, though, and he immediately took me in his arms, and freaking rubbed my back. 

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” I repeated more time I could count.  
“Don’t be! Just stop crying okay? You’re okay right here, alright?”

He let me go and I tried to wipe my tears without messing the little makeup I’d put on, but I was shaking again and I was so sure it was a big disaster. I said that to Niall and he said with the biggest smile I looked just fine. What a liar. But his hands were on my arms and I could have trusted anything he would have said anyway.

“I get why the girl before told me you needed a huge hug, come here again. Oh,” he seemed to realize, “and also, happy birthday, right?”  
“What?”  
“It’s your birthday, or it was a lie?” he frowned, stopping his move to embrace me.  
“No, no, it is my birthday,” I half laughed, grasping his arms to make sure he really were here, “I can show you my ID.”  
“No, that’s fine, I believe you,” he also laughed.

And then I was against his chest once more, realizing it was Madenn who had told him that, and cried even more. I brought my hands to his back and felt like crushing him so bad to really really really realize it was happening, but I just squeezed him a little, and whispered, barely able to have words making sense to leave my mouth, as I was sobbing uncontrollably.

“Thank you so much, you don’t even get what I mean by that.”  
“Thank you.” He said back.  
“No, thank you,” I insisted, “Thank you for your music, for being your beautiful self, for being such an amazing person…”  
“Awww” he legit let out of his mouth, and my heart stopped for a second at the cuteness, “You’re the amazing one, thank you for your support!” 

He rubbed my back again, squeezing me a bit more, and let me go, still having his hands on my arms. 

“What’s your name?”  
“I’m Zélie.” I said, wiping my eyes once more, hoping tears would eventually stop to fall.  
“Nice to meet you.”  
“No, nice to meet you!”  
“Nah, I’ve said it first.” 

He shrugged, looking stupidly proud of himself and I could have freaking died here.  
I giggled like a freaking little girl, and he led me to the picture spot because we were still standing at the entrance. I asked him if the position I wanted was okay and he protested, saying we wouldn’t see my face, but I said I really didn’t care and it was actually kind of the point. He finally agreed, and as we placed, I whispered.

“I’m not sure if we can, but could you write something for me after?”  
“Anything, love. It’s your birthday after all.” He whispered back, and I swear he winked at me.

I was really having a hard time to stop crying, and to stop shaking, and he was really not making it easy on me. We settled facing each other, and seeing I was kind of shy and shaking and all over the place, he grabbed my hands to put them on his hips, making our two bodies grow closer and he put his hands on both my cheeks, like I’d asked him, then slowly bent down to kiss my forehead. I closed my eyes, smiled so wide as tears rolled down my cheeks again, meeting Niall’s skin, and I breathed in hardly to fully have the moment engraved in my body for as long as I could, in every ways possible. In a quick move I moved my hand, the one ‘facing’ the camera, to his forearm, and couldn’t help but rubbing his skin there. He was real, it was happening, he was all mine for just a second.  
I heard the click of the camera, and it seemed to me Niall remained in our position for a bit longer after that, his palm pressing just a bit more on my cheeks. Or maybe it was my imagination. I don’t care about that, to be honest. I just enjoyed the moment so much. He finally stepped back and asked again if I was okay, and I nodded. To be honest I’d not been this okay for quite the time.  
He then somehow noticed my tattoo. It’s a quote from the Peter Pan book, “think lovely wonderful thoughts”, spread on my right arm.

“Hey, I like that!” I thanked him shyly, and he frowned, “But, ya need a reminder for that?” he asked, referring to the words written.  
“Yeah.” I nodded, and shrugged. “Been a couple of hard years, and I needed something that lasted more than just your songs to get through my days.” Then I saw he seemed sad to hear that, so I added with the biggest smile I could, which was easy since he was here, “It’s a nice combo, though. Songs on repeat, and looking at my tattoo.”  
“I’m sorry to hear that.” He squeezed my arms again. “You’re going to be just fine, alright?”  
“I know.” I nodded. It was true, I knew it. I just didn’t know when. “Thank you, Niall.”

He then turned around to ask for a pen and a piece of paper, and one of the security guy said he couldn’t do that.

“I can,” Niall protested, “she asked me and I told her it was fine.” He paused, looked at me and then looked over at him again. “And it’s her birthday gift, alright.”

The guy insisted but Niall still got back next to me with his paper and pen, and looked at me again, waiting for my words. I was sweating and melting and about to cry again, and my voice was being so weird, and I could have died right this instant.

“Okay, so”, I tried to keep my voice from breaking, “ _Mirrors_ had a huge impact on me ever since I first heard it,” I managed to say before having a shaking voice, shaking hands, shaking everything, quite literally. “And…”  
“Sorry Niall, we need to get going.” Someone interrupted me, and I felt bad for taking so long, even though I felt like I’d been here for two seconds.  
“Yeah, just a minute, please.” He answered and focused back on me. “Sorry, love, I wish we had more time.” 

With his free hand he took one of my shaking ones, and tears fell down my cheeks again, without me being able to control it. That was the effect his presence, his sweetness, had on me.

Yes, you can definitely sum up this m&g with me crying messily in front of Niall, that’s fine by me, that’s what happened. Good point I hid my face for the picture, who turned out to be just as cute and amazing as I wanted it; and Niall closed his eyes for the picture too, and was sort of smiling, I love it so so much so I don’t care if I was a mess for the whole time in there. Anyway, sorry, back to my moment with him.

“What about me, then?” I asked, nervously laughing, and he smiled, waiting for me to keep going. “So, yeah, _Mirrors_.” I cleared my throat, “Can you write down “I hope you know you’re beautiful, have you ever been told?”, please?”

He smiled wider and let my hand go to write it down, leaning on his leg to write as good as he could. Instead of watching his hands I watched his face, and he was focusing so hard, it was the cutest. I wiped my eyes once again, and laughed a little when I heard what he said next.

“It’s going to look terrible, you guys need to stop to ask me for handwriting tattoos, I swear.” He laughed.  
“I never said it was for a tattoo?” I joked, and his head lifted up, and I could see him frowning.  
“What is it for then?”  
“It is, for a tattoo, yeah.” I nodded, and he shook his head, amused.  
“Alright I really need to not fuck this up, lot of pressure here.” He was silent for a few seconds, then: “Here.” He said, as he finished writing, and he handed it to me. “Happy birthday.”  
“Thank you so much. So so much, oh my god.” 

I started sobbing uncontrollably again and put my free hand on my mouth, as he instantly brought me back into his arms.

“I guess you need to remember and that’s why you asked this part of _Mirrors_ , but you’re beautiful, and now you’ve been told."  
“That’s not the way to stop me from crying, just so you know,” I smiled through my tears, holding him tighter. “I love you so much.”

I put my nose in the crook of his neck and breathed hard as a way to stop my body from shaking, but it was not that much of a success. I was so lucky Niall was holding me because I was certain I was going to faint in a minute.

“I love you too.” He answered, and that was my call to die, I guess. I could feel he really meant it, like he always meant whatever he said anyway. “Take great care of you, alright?” he whispered in my ear.

He finally stepped back after having squeezed me a bit harder and I nodded.

“I’ll try.”  
“No, you promise.” He pointed at me, looking really concerned.  
“I promise.” I said, crying harder, yet smiling. “Thank you so much. This is the best birthday ever, can’t wait to see you on stage.”  
“The best birthday, I don’t know, the birthday you cried the most, probably,” he joked, and I wiped my eyes for the hundredth time, laughing wholeheartedly.  
“You really are my sunshine, Niall.” I whispered, yet he heard it as we were still close.

He brought my hands to his mouth and freaking kissed them, looking straight into my eyes. 

“Goodbye, love. Think lovely wonderful thoughts.” He said, nodding at where my tattoo was.  
“Goodbye. Thank you for everything. Je t’aime.”  
“Je t’aime.” He smiled. “See you later. Also, thank you for coming.”

He waved at me and I held on to my paper, being led out of the room, tears always rolling down my cheeks, and when I saw Madenn she immediately hugged me and squeezed me so tight. She rubbed my hair as I sobbed so hard into her arms, telling her how wonderful it was and how happy I was feeling and how cute he was and I thanked her over and over again for her to have asked him to hug me tight and to have told him it was my birthday, and she told me she was sure I wouldn’t have said it if she hadn’t, and she was obviously right.

We were led to the pit after that, and we were really well placed, in like the third row, quite in the middle. I felt like crying again, as you can guess. For the One D in 2014, we were in the middle of the crowd, and lucky us we had the big screen because the Stade de France is not the small venue we were in that day, even though the zenith wasn’t the smallest place and could still welcome 6000 people. So, yeah. Third row of a 6000 people capacity place, not bad, M&G packages. Not bad at all.

The concert after that was just the perfect continuity of the M&G I just experienced. The soundcheck was great, Niall was the funniest, and I managed not to cry for the whole time, and then they opened the gates and people started to get in, and I started not to be able to breathe properly because people were pushing, and the room was hot as hell without air conditioning. Lucky me I had Madenn to hold my hand, because I was this close from a real panic attack.  
Julia finally came on stage, and I suddenly forgot how shitty I felt, and even tried to jump when she asked us to. I sang my heart out with her when she sang the songs I knew, and was amazed at how sweet she was. She made us scream “Horan” every time she said “Niall”, and that made the whole crowd even more on fire. She thanked us several times, and left the stage after half an hour. And we had a twenty minutes break to die once again. People really were the worst in there, I swear. We were given some water by security guys and I tried to breathe again, until the light went down and the room screamed loud.  
On the loose started to play, and that was my cue to start crying once again. I didn’t stop until the end of the song, when my voice was already dead from singing along with him, despites my tears. He said hello to us, tried to speak French, told us he had studied French during four years in school and it was all he had left, and I cried harder at how cute he was. 

I knew it already, as I saw it in 2014, just like the other members of this amazing band, Niall belonged on stage, for real. I could see how he had grown up to be this guy standing on stage without looking like he was sorry to be here, like he used to be at the beginning. He was an unapologetic king and was holding all of our hearts with his radiant presence in this room. We were more than 6000, and all we could see, was him. I must admit I didn’t look once at any member of his band, for the whole time of the show, and I can say I’m quite sorry about it because it’s not that cool, this album wouldn’t be alive on stage if they weren’t there, but hey, it’s Niall I’m in love with, okay?  
In the deep core of my soul, I’ll remember this show forever. I know I don’t need to write down anything else specific here, because I know I won’t ever need help to remember. But my favorite part, the one I still want to share here, is when Niall sang _Mirrors_. Alright, you’re going to say I’m a paranoid fangirl and all, but I can swear on the life of all my loved ones, on the life of Madenn, on the life of everyone I hold dearly in my heart, during _Mirrors_ , Niall looked at me. Not for the whole song, of course. His eyes went across the pit, and my foolish brain told me he was looking for me. As if. But stepping back, I think it was really what he was trying to do. And when he started to sing the second verse, I swear, he found my eyes, and sang it looking at me. For twenty seconds, I swear, he was singing it for me. And he made this tattoo project even more special. 

At the end of the song, as my cheeks were wet once again, and I’m still not sure it wasn’t in my imagination, even though Madenn said he really did, he said:

“You’re beautiful, and now you’ve been told.”

And everyone screamed again. He winked. He fucking winked, and again, I must be a paranoid crazy girl, but it was for me, that part, right? Just those few seconds? He remembered me, right? Or was it just a dream, like the rest of this day seemed to have been?

Here. The day I’ve met my sunshine. The birthday I’ll never forget. The best birthday, AND the birthday I cried the most.  
I’d do it all over again, I’d do it a hundred more time, if I could. I’d relive this day over and over again, just to have him in my arms again.  
Niall made this birthday so special, and I’ll forever be grateful for that.  
Say I’m a liar, say I’m a naïve little girl who think she was different than any of the girls and boys who were in that room that night, I don’t care. Maybe I wasn’t. Maybe I’m just another fan for Niall, maybe he’ll forget he ever done this for me, and maybe he won’t remember me the next time I have the chance to meet him, if I do. Maybe even the next day, he had the same one in Germany asking him for a tattoo, a lyric from one of his song that had an impact on them, and he was as sweet as he was with me, and made them feel as special as he made me feel. Must he meet a thousand, a trillion people telling him it’s their birthday or they love him so much or he is their sunshine… This day was mine. Niall made me feel special, and I don’t care if I’m overreacting about all of it. I won’t apologize, because he made me feel something I’ll never forget, and I’ll forever be grateful for that. I know now, even if he says it to everyone, even if he said it just because I said it, that he loves me. I own a piece of his heart, like any fan he has. We all own a tiny piece of his heart, and I’m so glad he own the entirety of mine.

_I’m just a star in the middle of the sky, amongst trillions other shining for you, and you may not see me that much because we’re too many, but that’s fine. You’re not mine, you’ll never be. But I’m yours, truly._

**Author's Note:**

> Hey there! 
> 
> So, what you just read is purely not what happened to me. This is clearly an AU of a fiction I'm actually writing (and prob never posting haha), and I used my main female character to embodies the part which would be me, I guess. But it's not the reality. (Well, a lot of it, besides the M&G I didn't live, is actually what really happened, but anyway, you get it, it's a mix between reality and imagination.  
> Yeah, I'm French, I went to his concert, and it was, indeed, on my birthday, and it was the best time of my life, but my name's not Zélie, I'm not Nineteen, and I couldn't go to a M&G. What happened in that room is purely what I imagined the perfection of meeting Niall would be to me, and I had the inspiration for some of it with Twitter, where i could read testimonies of people meeting him and actually doing and saying some of the things he said in this... And what Zel's asked for a tattoo + the position for the picture is actually what I'd asked if I ever meet Niall, so no steallyyyy please! (At least for the tattoo haha) Plus the tattoo she already have is actually one of mine, oops.  
> So, yeah, this is kind of what I wish would have happened to me, and it's really fluffy and cringy and all, but I kinda like it. I hadn't write in a while, and this was written in like two days, and I'm glad I finally got something out of my head. Also it allowed me to cope with the reality after Niall's show.
> 
> If you had the chance to meet him, in Paris or elsewhere, feel free to share it with me! I'd love to hear how wonderful and cute this guy is, until I can witness it myself.
> 
> Thanks for reading!  
> Sorry if there are mistakes, I'm French. Doing my best, though.  
> Thank you for being here.  
> S.


End file.
